The #BlackSmokeMatters #SlowRoll on I-57 passing 127th Street.@WGNRadio pic.twitter.com/goinXIRhrP
— Jen DeSalvo (@trafficjamjen) April 12, 2019
Though it’s hard to gauge the number of drivers that actually sat out for the called-for April 12 nationwide driver shutdown, organizer Patrick Karns admits that the planned protests “kind of fell apart.”
Owner-operator Karns pointed to the limited participation in on-highway protests slated for Friday. He said he has archived the active — and often vitriolic — Black Smoke Matters group on Facebook. The group had been a hub for organizing protests this year, including the April 12 shutdown, which was meant to cap a series of so-called “slow roll” protests that have taken place in recent months.
Roughly 30 to 40 truckers showed for an on-highway protest around the Chicago area on Friday, though the convoy was blocked from entering downtown by Illinois State Police and Chicago Police. “They had every downtown exit blocked,” Karns said. Chicago presented a central protest point, as Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration head Ray Martinez was in downtown Chicago for meetings that day.
The numbers “were nowhere near what we needed,” Karns said, to have the type of impact he’d hoped for in alerting the public to their hopes for more hours flexibility and more safe parking options, among a long list of other points the group wanted to address.
